 She is the perfect example of these humans and unworthy of your sympathy in every way. Destroy her, Diana. I love you. They're everything you say, but so much more. That's from the movie Wonder Woman and I think we have somewhat of a Wonder Woman today. Tricia Barker has an amazing near-death experience to talk about, but she has so much more to talk about. This is one of those non-linear level three conversations that I so, so enjoy. And I saw quickly after that moment in this life review how the things that mattered the most is when I was peaceful and happy in nature, when I was kind to others and the thing that I needed change were exactly those moments, the people that I worked with who I judged, who actually went home and prayed for me. They were Catholic and they just included me in their prayers and I thought, wow, their hearts are really lovely. They're just beautiful people and it doesn't matter who they are, like look into the hearts of people and create a kind environment wherever you go. Like that may be the most important thing we do wherever our work, wherever our feet hit the ground. If we're kind to people around us, then life is going to work better. And I did not want to leave. That's when I was like, oh that broken body on that operating table. Why don't we forget about that? And why don't I stay here where I can feel good? This voice said, look down, showed me a river and all these souls were covered with either light or darkness. And I knew this to be fear. The darkness was fear. The light was just a consciousness that was connected to God. So we either walk around in fear or we walk around connected to God. It seemed very simple as if I could tell all the people who had darkness around them, hey, just connect to God. It's that simple. Yeah, so I didn't really want to go here, but I guess I'll go here. We live in a porn saturated environment and little kids are seeing violence as their first exposure. Violence against women is their first exposure to porn. Does porn cause rape? No. But does a saturation of it and a continued saturation of it make people see people as objects? Yes. And so it's dehumanizing. So do Asian men get most of their pornography from the United States? Yes, yes, they do. Are we are we not having enough conversations about what pornography is doing to the brain? You know, I think there's a lot of men who want to talk about it who want to say, I want away from it to a degree. I want a real open tantric experience with a woman. I don't want to end up using virtual reality for the rest of my life and having sex with a screen. Welcome to Skeptico where we explore controversial science and spirituality with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I'm your host, Alex Tequeris. And today we welcome Tricia Barker to Skeptico. Tricia is the author of Angels in the O.R. What Dying Taught Me About Healing, Survival and Transformation. And the book tells a really rather remarkable story, a horrific story about Tricia's near-death experience. But I guess more importantly how that led her to her teaching mission about spiritual transformation, healing, and all sorts of other stuff you learn when you talk to more highly evolved beings. So, you know, the other thing I really appreciate about Tricia is it's a book not only about that experience, but about the trauma that sometimes comes with life after a spiritually transformative experience. And that's something a lot of people don't talk about. A lot of times I think people in the NDE community leave the impression that it's all fixed, it's all healed, not only that it's all healed, but that nothing bad will ever happen again. And Tricia's story is a larger story about overcoming trauma and maintaining a perspective that is enlightening, uplifting, and empowering beyond that. So, hey, it's fantastic to have her on. Tricia is a very sought after speaker on these topics. She's created this rather amazing thing called the NDE Summit, where she has all these terrific speakers. She did, had to do it virtually this year, of course. But a lot of these folks you will recognize from Skeptico, we've interviewed all those folks. Most of those, two of those folks. So, a couple of those folks. Anyways, she is a real mover and shaker in the NDE world. So, Tricia, it's awesome to have you here. Thanks so much for joining me. Oh, thanks, Alex. I really appreciate the introduction. And, yeah, a lot of near death experiences who have their experiences, when they're 15 or 22, still have a long life to live, you know, so they are going to encounter struggle. And they're younger and they're making their way in this world. So, that struggle resonates with younger in the ears, you know, the ones who have it later in life, maybe incorporate it a little bit differently, because they're set in their careers and that kind of thing. Huh. Well, I think that brings up a whole interesting set of topics, you know, and but first of all, I have to say, I am glad we're having this conversation because I really thought that maybe I had scared you off with the Skeptico, because this is a show about inquiry to perpetuate doubt. And I hold to that. I think doubt is a very spiritual thing. And when I hear anyone, including Andy Ears, who have this degree of certainty about their experience, I am immediately leery because I just want to say, you know, I've talked to a lot of people at this point, and there's a lot of contradictions out there that are impossible to all resolve. So I think we all have to be humbly hold this stuff gently as we try to figure it out in a, in this kind of mode of doubting, you know, and the only people I hear who don't doubt, I always tell the story, you know, like the last person I remember, and I told them, this is a woman who she's in Ramtha, you know, the cult, the Ramtha cult. And, but super sweet woman. And we're talking about this book she had written, which I thought was nice. And I was just, I like people, even people I don't necessarily agree with. And I was telling her about Skeptico. And I said, you know, the ethos of the show is inquiry to perpetuate doubt. She immediately interrupted me. She goes, no, I have no doubt. There is no doubt. I have no doubt. And I go, yeah, because you're in a frickin cult. Of course, you have no doubt. Right, right. Well, I have to say that I'm excited to be on your show and excited to talk about this because I came back, I think, to talk to agnostics. All my friends were agnostic before my experience, you know, was very steeped in that culture. And it's taken 25 years to crack the mind of one of my friends just a tiny bit. But when she read my book, at the end of the day, she set back and said, you know, I thought about what happens when we die. And I've just thought about it with this kind of open-hearted, open-minded perspective. And so I love it that I was able to crack open her mind just a tad. For me, I see consciousness as greater outside of my brain. So, you know, when I was in the near-death experience, I felt smarter. I felt like I was learning more, like I was being given these uploads and downloads, whatever you want to call them, at a high rate, which gave me more knowing, if you will. So I felt like the brain is a limiter of consciousness and that consciousness out there is, and I'm sure you've heard that before, is more expansive. But this is my experience. So I'm just asking people to walk a mile in my shoes. I don't expect them to, you know, change everything. Yeah, I don't expect anyone to change reviews on anything. And I'm certainly not agnostic on your view of consciousness. As a matter of fact, I feel like it's a hard one battle that I've had to convince myself that consciousness is more expansive. And there are these extended consciousness realms that near-death experiencers talk about. But I'd go one step further. I mean, I'm very convinced by the evidence behind near-death experience science, you know, when we take it into the lab and we really look at the kind of work that's been done. But that still, I mean, that doesn't get to some of the fundamental questions, like that you just were, a lot of people wouldn't necessarily agree with your take on the integration problems that come with that. So in order to get there, I've kind of jumped ahead in the story, we ought to back up and allow people to hear your story, because it has so many interesting elements to it, particularly regarding, I love that they'll watch this healing aspect of it, which I think is very unique. And I think people will find interesting. So tell us the NDE story as if we all love these NDE stories. I used to, you know, when I first got into this, I used to listen to or read one a day just because it's inspirational, kind of like miracle stories. You just have to reground yourself with all the crap that's out there by saying, wait a minute, there is something else I need to tune into. So please go ahead. Yeah, I think a lot of people feel like little children when they hear these stories, they feel this joy or this excitement, because it's a topic that gives us hope or gives us faith. And I've seen so many people's faces light up and when I randomly mentioned the story and ended up telling it, but I get a lot of healing from interviewing near death experiencers on my channel too. And I didn't think I would, but still just being seeped in that afterlife experience is wonderful. But yeah, so I was an agnostic college student, had a major wreck and broke my back in T10, 11 and 12. These vertebrae were completely shattered, bone fragments were pressing into my spine. I found out when I got to the hospital, I'd lost feeling in my left leg, which was terrifying as a runner and an athletic person. You know, the thought of being in a wheelchair possibly was horrifying. I was all about the physical, my grades, you know, was I going to be able to graduate, what happened to my car, my body, I could care less about any afterlife experience. I just didn't want to die. I wanted to survive and walk. That was my only concern going into surgery. So when I signed that form, that piece of paper that said 17% chance of death, I thought, whatever, I'm 22, I'm strong, I'm a runner, I'm not dying. So you can imagine how shocked I was when at some point during the surgery, they had to, in the nineties, they opened up the back and they took bone from the hip. So they were placing the rods above where the injury was and below. So most of my back is fused. I can't do some yoga poses. Like there's a long rod running through my back. So I lifted up and I saw how bloody the surgery was. So there was just so much blood seeping out. And that was my first thought when my out of body experience occurred when my spirit form left and I saw this body and never questioned, was this a dream? I was certain that I was seeing the surgeon certain that this is what was happening. But what kind of blew my mind were the angelic presences behind the surgeons? And they were about nine feet tall. People always asked me what they look like. Androgynous, highly intelligent. I just called them light beings, not really angels, because I didn't know what to say about them other than they were highly intelligent and they had this healing power. They put me completely at ease. And they were sending light into my spirit form, which I believe was to help me adjust to this realm to make sense of, okay, now I'm my spirit self, not just this physical body. At one point, they said, watch this rather playfully, which you mentioned, and they sent this light through the back of the surgeons through their hands and it lit up my entire physical body. And I knew, I just knew that the surgeons would be able to pick out the bone fragments. I'd walk, I'd run, I'd live a longer life. I wasn't going to die right there. But the monitor flatlined. And so I knew that sound. And I knew that that meant, oh, the body's dead. And I thought, ooh, they're going to revive me. This is going to be gross. How in the world are they going to do it? Know that my back is open. I'm out of here. And so I left to that room. And I had no idea that my near death experience would be documented as much as it would. And that this next part would be so important. But I saw my stepdad get a candy bar out of the vending machine. So this is somewhere in the hallway of the hospital. And what's important about that for anyone who's lost kids or anyone who's lost a teenager, there is a psychic bond, I believe, between parents and kids. So at that moment, I later verified with my mom and dad that when he walked back in with that candy bar, both of my parents were on the ground praying. They were certain that I had died, that it was over. And they just felt this need to get on their knees and pray. And my stepdad walked back in with that candy bar and was like, Hey, everyone wants some candy. And just was, you know, making a joke. And that's the significant as well, because I love your story. And it's absolutely amazing. One thing you'll allude to, and we got to bring it up because people are always looking for kind of independent verification, things that we can really put our finger on and with that doubt thing kind of reduce that doubt. So tell why the candy bar is so significant here. Yeah, so he was a health nut. And I never thought that he ate things like that. And so that's all I thought when I saw him. But later to have someone verify it, that became vertical perception, which in the indie community, everyone loves, you know, when a near death experiencer like Kimberly Clark sharps, he's a red shoe in another room, or another near death experiencer might verify something that's happening in a different location. Everyone's just thrilled because that proves that consciousness survives the body even for a little while, you know, just if that moment is verified. So I did verify that he got that Snickers bar, and that became an important part for researchers. It wasn't that important to me. I just thought, Okay, whatever, you know, he's getting a candy bar and moved on, because flying is a lot more exciting than watching someone get a candy bar. So as soon as my spirit left that hospital, I was flying above the hospital, looking at Austin, Texas where the accident happened and where I was going to school at a wonderful college just downtown. You tease a fun campus. And I remember thinking, Hey, I just love everyone. Like that was my first thought when you leave the body behind. I just wanted everyone I'd ever known on friendship, acquaintance level, or just briefly to know that I cared about them and wanted them to have a good life. And I think that's essentially who we are. You know, one of the things that I love, that I heard in your story that I thought is it just resonated with me as being particularly meaningful, maybe because it's something I need to work on more. But you said that that heart opening that you felt you immediately kind of in almost a life review thing, saw how that was could be improved in your life. And that the people, you know, the women that you work with at the restaurant, who you always said, Oh, you know, they're off doing their own thing, I'm a college student, I can't really connect with them. You saw how you were connected with them and how this web of love and feeling that we all connection that we have extends beyond sometimes what we imagine and that they not only cared about you, but they were praying for you. But also there was just this, you felt a certain sadness, I think that you hadn't connected more with their life. And I just thought that was such a beautiful part of the story. Thanks. Yeah, it's it is an important reminder we judgment separates us from people and certainly as a young person, I was clickish and had all kind of judgmental ideas about who I would be friends with or who I would associate with they weren't good enough for me or interesting enough for me or smart enough, or in college or you know, whatever, I just had judgments about who could enter my life. And I saw quickly after that moment in this life review, how the things that mattered the most is when I was peaceful and happy in nature, when I was kind to others, and the thing that I needed to change were exactly those moments, the people that I worked with who I judged, who actually went home and prayed for me, they were Catholic, and they just included me in their prayers. And I thought, wow, their hearts are really lovely, they're just beautiful people. And it doesn't matter who they are, like look into the hearts of people, and create a kind environment wherever you go, like that may be the most important thing we do, wherever our work, wherever our feet hit the ground, if we're kind to people around us, then life is going to work better. And that was that was the lesson that, you know, it's not about ego, and many near death experiences experience this, they, they think they're going to come back and write a great book or make a great monument or do something that's fantastic. And, and that intelligence from the other side is like, hey, no, just why don't you love other people? Why don't you be kind? Yeah, it's kind of simple. But the messages were definitely simple, and they did slow down one of the, so as I was transitioning past that life review, I started seeing almost like words, different lessons coming toward me, one is love is all that matters and all that we take with us into this realm. So anything I did from a place of love or passion or excitement or joy or kindness, I was taking that it's like my soul, those were the jewels in my soul, and I got to take them into that realm. Anything I did that was ego centered or, you know, my shadow self or whatever you want to call it, just left behind, it was left on the ground, wasn't important. And as I transitioned into that place, I also heard remind them to go to nature. And that's something that I keep telling people, especially in this technological age, we are forgetting what it's like to have respectful, decent human communities. And we're, we're losing this ability to connect both to the energy of nature and the energy of others. And so that was something that's, that really hit me. Let me interject something because I kind of, I love what you're saying. I spin it a little bit differently for myself. Because I almost hear that as kind of another negative thing you're doing wrong, thing to add to your to-do list. I really love what Eckhart Toley says sometimes when he says, look, we're all trying to connect with this ultimate stillness that's the core essence of who we are as a spirit. And we can naturally easily connect with that in nature, because nature is all about stillness. And I just, to me, that just really resonated and has helped me whenever I'm in nature to just find that stillness and that connection. And it's, it's instant. I don't have to think about it or do it or, you know, make sure I, you get what I mean. Oh yeah. Now that's beautiful. And I'm glad you have that connection. I worry about the youth because I work with a lot of kids who are addicted and it won't even say addicted. They have habitual patterns where they don't even go outside to sit under a tree or take a walk in nature that they're playing video games to all hours of the night and suffering from deep anxiety and depression. And so I'm reminding them and I take them outside to go sit under a tree. Yeah. I mean, I'm just shaking my head. I mean, I got, I got four kids and, you know, age range and age from 25 to 17. And my 17 year old is in there doing her online senior year of high school. And I love it when she goes outside and gets, gets in nature, but this comes down to the other stuff that we're going to talk about as a parent or as just someone who's interacting with another soul. My learning has been to tread very lightly on somebody else's path, you know, and that isn't, that doesn't come easy for me because my thing is like, put down your damn phone and get the hell out there. The beach is right here. You can see it. Go down there. You're going to get all this great stuff from the beach and from that. Now go do it. You know, well, that kind of destroys, destroys the larger message right there. So there's a lot to do. Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate what you're saying. So that's where near death experiences probably get into trouble as we get these messages, then our own intellect starts interpreting them in different ways. So all that was said is remind them to go to nature. So I just throw it out there sometimes like, Hey, if you're stressed out, go to nature. That's the closest message I can connect and to another part in my near death experience. And this is a little bit different from some people's experience. I felt like when I transitioned from that starscape, you know, that eternal, you know, expanse of stars into this realm that looked like heaven, which was just filled with green grass and this flowing hill. I felt like it was an actual holding place. I didn't feel like this was the end all and be all. I felt like this was a place to rest and a place to connect with an ancestor. So the only person who was dead was my grandfather. And that's another part of near death experiences that researchers love to talk about is you don't connect with anyone here. So it's not like a dream you connect with people who have actually died and they're there to welcome you. So my grandfather was the only one who died. He looked very young. He had this beautiful glowing face and glowing eyes. And I hardly recognized him at first. And he spent some time with me there in that realm. And then asked me if I wanted to go on, which I knew to be the light of God and this ultimate consciousness, call it creator, call it God. But it was something that drew me and it was so magnetic. I could not stop myself from wanting to go there. My soul just like leapt into the sky and went towards this light of God. I felt people's prayers trying to hold me back. And I knew exactly what their words were, what their prayers were, prayers felt like a wind or an energy. And I broke through that. And I remember thinking, oh, whatever, maybe I'm not going to come back. And this will be great. And I'll just see you soon enough. And in that expanse of no time, it feels, it doesn't feel mean to say that to family members. It feels like, oh, I'll just see you as soon here. Time feels so long, but over there, not so much. And so as I was going toward that light of God, every part of my life that was difficult. So I didn't have the easiest childhood. And sometimes I felt as if there wasn't much good about me, you know, didn't hear a lot of good things. And I was a smart kid and a good kid and did well in school and was obedient. But I felt deeply criticized. But in that light of God, I felt like, oh, I'm finally loved. All that love I've been searching for my whole life is right here. I'm fine. I'm safe. There's nothing to worry about. I have access to this. Everybody has access to this. I'm completely okay. And that was the first time in my life that I'd honestly felt that good, except for a few moments, maybe in nature, where I was playing and enjoying life. But that was almost like an atomic bomb of love. Any little romantic experience I'd had, or anything, did not compare to it. It was just massive. And it filled up my spirit body. And, you know, sometimes when near-death experiences talk about this part, we almost sound arrogant. I started to seem larger than I was as if this light just emanated from me. I felt so powerful and so right, you know, just one with God. And I did not want to leave. That's when I was like, oh, that broken body on that operating table. Why don't we forget about that? And why don't I stay here where I can feel good? And that's when I felt as if there was a barrier or stop. And I hit some kind of energetic wall. And this booming voice, not really masculine or feminine, but I just heard it deep within my soul. This voice said, look down, showed me a river. And all these souls were covered with either light or darkness. And I knew this to be fear. The darkness was fear. The light was just a consciousness that was connected to God. So we either walk around in fear or we walk around connected to God. It seemed very simple, as if I could tell all the people who had darkness around them, hey, just connect to God. It's that simple. And as that vision unfolded and a lot of a lot of the visions in the afterlife were more like metaphors. So I knew that I was going to teach not really as a spiritual teacher, but in actual public schools and colleges. And that was going to be my profession. And I was going to work with these kids and teens and remind them just how to shine and how to feel good about themselves and how to have access to love, not from a religious perspective, but more from a holistic, I'm a good person. I can go out into this world and make a difference kind of perspective, just empower these students. And although I was excited about that part, I also knew how little teachers got paid and I'd grown up poor and I wanted nothing to do with it. So I actually argued with God for a moment and said, no way, I'm not doing that. And then I felt as if my soul was hurled out of heaven back into my body, like I was a baseball or something being thrown back into my body. It was not nice. And this dark wind encompassed me. And then I felt shoved back into my body. And then I remember the moments of waking up and speaking my name. Oh, that's great. We're going to continue on with the story. You're throwing a lot of, for some to say not religious, you're throwing a lot of religious terms in there, which I think is like, okay, maybe later we'll have some conversations about that. David Ditchfield, he was at your summit. He was on this show as well. Great guy. Love his story. Very Christian themed NDE, but when you really press him, he's like, well, I don't know if that's really the end game. Also interviewed a while back. I always reference this guy because he really fits so many of the things I love to talk about Ian McCormick. You know, hey, he'll tell you, man, if you didn't see Jesus in your NDE, you didn't have an NDE. You had Satan coming to see you when he goes around to churches around the world. And that's his fricking message. And he had an NDE. There's no doubt he had NDE. He was in a fricking morgan. I forget, you know, those remote islands off the coast of the Indian Ocean. So we'll get into that later that, you know, like you said, the ego comes in even for the NDE or it doesn't erase. It doesn't change. It seems to, well, here I am saying like I know, you know, I don't know anything. I'm just saying looking at looking across, you know, all these NDE's and studying them like I had, along with studying other spiritually transformative experiences and extended transformative experiences. Hey, are these higher evolved beings? Are they ET? You know, some people tell you that have had NDE's and have had those encounters and say there's some kind of connection there that we don't understand. So there's a lot of stuff to explore. And the answers can never be reduced down to one person's experience. That's my takeaway. But I did want to, before I kind of shift into all that, allow you to finish the story because there's such an interesting, I think, and you're so open about this in such an important way about the trauma that you experience after the NDE, which again surprises people because it's like, no, wait a minute. Trisha's all set now. God, if you will, has, you know, the God has kind of, here you go, Trisha. It's just going to be, you go girl, and it's all going to be fun. And you know, all this stuff, but it doesn't exactly happen like way. Yeah. So you bring up so much in what you said. And I want to say that my family didn't accept my experience. Ultimately, you know, my mother thought that not seeing Jesus meant that I did not have a real near-death experience, but I was filled with so much consciousness, so much light. I was having psychic flashes. I was connecting with healing, which helped me learn to walk again, you know, that I was having lucid dreams every night. I knew that I had awakened because of this near-death experience. And I knew that it was a much more healing way of living, you know, to be interested in yoga and meditation and lucid dreaming than partying, like the average college student. I knew that my life had changed for the better. And I knew that that experience was ultimately good. And I think the soul would know the difference between, you know, the angel of light being the devil versus God. I know that I encountered God. And so to me, the people who feel that way, they seem to be seeped in fear, which I, I saw was not a good thing. You know, they're fearful of any experience that does not mirror their own or does not align with their belief system instead of just listening openly to a different view. Can I interject a point there, though? Because that's tricky and slippery because, you know, the one thing we're leaning on here, if we can call it scientific, this whole discussion of near-death experience, and I really like that we can call it scientific because in the larger context of our culture, we have a very science-centered culture that, you know, for the longest time, and you've been doing this for a while, know that, you know, they've just denied near-death experience at all. And it's really the science that has won the day. So the Penn-Thon-Lommels, the Jeff Longs, the Sam Parnia's, I don't know, Peter Fenwick, you know, all these people have said, well, wait a minute, I'm just doing this straight up as a, you know, medical professional. And I'm telling you, I see no other way to interpret this data. And that does give us some degree of terra firma to kind of stand on here. But with that comes a complexity that we don't really know how to wrestle with. And by that, I mean, Ann McCormick was dead. We can't remove that from the equation. He was like really dead. I mean, he was in the morgue for hours. So he was in that extended realm. So now what he's bringing back, we can make judgments and say, well, it's fear laden. And that's why he, you know, sees Jesus and only Jesus, or he reinterpreted it when he got back. And we can say a lot of stuff. But now we're venturing a little bit away from the science, if you will, that we relied on, because the science got us to the point of saying, wait a minute, you people that say, we are biological robots in a meaningless universe, and our life is meaningless, just get on with it. Don't think about larger things. We're shouting them down by saying, these people are dead and have a conscious experience. Do you have what I'm saying? So we can't, we, I think we have to be careful about going too far with the assumptions we're making about how they're experiencing that extended realm and what that means. And, you know, it's all fear laden or that's how it works or, you know, any of the rest of that stuff. Yeah, well, I would say that I've continued to evolve and grow and change and heal since 1994 after my experience. And so one of those key lessons that you brought up earlier was not to judge others. And so, yeah, some, some of that may be judgment that we're placing on Ian, but, but at the same time, maybe he'll grow and change in 10 years and have a different way of looking at things. You don't know there might be a spiritual way of evolving past, past some limits here. There's so many questions that you can start bringing up so someone can come back to a body and have a biological condition of depression. And I did, you know, I came back and still struggled with that. You can come back to this body and still have childhood traumas and memories that you have to release. And, and you might come back to a culture that you don't agree with everything that's happening around you. And so you become somewhat of a rebel. So there's, there's a lot of individual journeys. And one of the reasons I think it's important for many near death experiencers to talk is people are going to gravitate to me and my story because they resonate because of their backgrounds to me. And someone might resonate to Ian and find greater peace and, and love and connection to God because of his story. So we should all be talking. Yeah. I mean, I guess I'm going to have to persist on this a little bit further. They're, they're, we do want to judge, you know, I mean, it's, I had this topic come up and I really like one comment that was made, it was either on YouTube or in the skeptical form. And the said, the person said, this person doesn't understand the difference between judging that is discernment and being judgmental, having a predisposed, you know, bias on people. I think discernment is like a really good thing. I think Ian, that the data doesn't, again, getting back to the data, that's what I told Ian. I said, well, Ian, you can have your opinion, but the data isn't on your side. Jeff Long has collected thousands of near death experiencers. And the data overwhelmingly contradicts your experience. That doesn't mean your experience is wrong. That doesn't mean we can't hear your experience. But I, my discernment, my judgment is you're probably making a mistake there, buds. You need to kind of loosen up on what you think. You know, as long as you're there, I want to get to the rest of that story, but I'll interject here with a little a clip that I think is going to further this discussion, maybe in a way that you'll like, maybe in a way you don't like. I don't know. Oh, I'll like it because I've interviewed him. That's one of my more popular interviews. Great. I interviewed him. I really, to say that I found his views and his certainty offensive would be a bit of an overstatement, but not too much of one. Let me play you the clip from my interview with him. Scientists tell us that the giant tsunami wave that devastated Southeast Asian 2004 wasn't as big as we usually imagine. It's not that they got hit by a 20 foot tall wave, as depicted here in the 2012 movie The Impossible. It's that they got crushed by a 20 foot wall of water that was miles and miles deep and the human suffering that it brought is unimaginable. Hundreds of thousands died, millions of lives were destroyed, and the devastation will go on for generations, but maybe not. You'll remember that a number of years ago, there was a natural disaster in Southeast Asia. There was a typhoon in Monsoon that killed about 100,000 people. I've asked about that event in the research I've done for your souls, planning your soul's gift, and what I was told in the channeling sessions is that those 100,000 or so souls before they were born, they looked at the earth and they said basically, we would like the earth as a planet as a whole to be at a certain frequency or vibration by a certain point in linear time. And if it looks as though the earth is not going to get there, we agree to give our lives in a large-scale natural disaster because we know that the result of that disaster will be a worldwide outpouring of love and support and aid and compassion. It will elevate the frequency of the entire planet. I find Rob's answer, explanation, interpretation of those world events not only very unsatisfying, I find them offensive in a number of ways. So that's okay, maybe he's right, maybe he knows the mind of God better than I do, maybe he's had a download that I didn't have, but you know, first off, I don't like people to get their figures wrong. So 225,000, not 100,000 people died from that disaster. So Rob, get your numbers straight right off the bat, but I don't know. Yeah, so there's, I hear a lot of discussion around this and I tread lightly because people need to go through grief and we don't need to shut victims down of crimes or of the loss of massive amounts of human life and say, don't grieve or don't be sad or don't go through the stages of grieving when you go through something because you are human and that's a real loss. And I think it takes away the humanity of an experience to, you know, victim blame or to say, oh, the souls are fine on that level. Are they fine? Possibly because that is the way it felt on the other side. When I was told, souls are either covered with fear or light. It looked really simple. I didn't think of fear as someone being a murderer or rapist or anti-Semitic or, you know, like I didn't look at that darkness as some of the really horrible things that it might be. I just looked at it as, they're not connected to God in the story. And it would be really simple to connect them to God. It's not simple. We're attacked on so many levels just being out in the public, you know, energetically or realistically. It's really, it's fascinating that, that on the other side, it looks very simple. So maybe he's tapping into souls do take on plans or they do take on a journey that on the other side seems a lot easier than it is down here. Yeah, maybe he's wrong too. Maybe he got the message. Maybe, you know, everyone has the people in the extended realm over and over again, we hear about a download and then we hear about, as you alluded to before, you know, how that download plays out in terms of somebody creating a culture, you know, becoming a power hungry guru. I interviewed a pretty well known anthropologist from Canada who wrote a book on self aggrandizement and these shaman in these native cultures who, you know, were genuine shaman were in the extended realm. And their message when they came back was, Hey pal, let me sleep with your wife. That's what they told me that if I sleep with your wife, then I can pass along to you some of the stuff that I'm learning over there, you know, I mean, we see this over and over again in in cults. And it's not to dismiss that these people have not connected with this extended realm. They've seemed to be maybe connecting with a different part of that extended realm that has a different agenda. But they are nonetheless connecting with this larger extended realm that our current scientific minded culture has completely excluded from our examination. So I'm kind of getting into more and more things there that that we won't have a chance to button down. But I don't think Rob is right. I think Rob needs to check himself. And what really gets me about Rob is his certainty, his absolute certainty that I've written the book on God's plan. So I know the mind of God. And here it is. I'll just tell it to you right here. You don't have to just buy it in my book. That's right. I mean, come on. Discernment, discernment, discernment. If I can, let me put a pause on that because I want to get back to your story because I think it's it's important in terms of work that you do and how that came out of some of your additional experiences. I don't want you to share anything that you're not comfortable with, but you've shared a lot of this stuff before. So I think it's, you know, part of the story. Yeah. So to continue my story, it took about, I was in a body cast in Texas in the summer for four months, which is a massive amount of time, if you can imagine 100 degree weather, learning to walk again. And basically, I healed really quickly. I meditated a lot and returned to college. And I was a different person. And that's one of the key elements of near death experiences is I was interested in other things. I started going to meditation groups with a bunch of old hippies. And here was this 22 year old kid, you know, at all these groups doing yoga, just living a different life, really focused on health and wellness. And then I followed the mission. I got my teaching certification before I went to teach in public schools in the US. I thought, oh, I'll travel a little, I'll teach in Southeast Asia or somewhere, you know, China. And I looked into different places, Japan. I ended up in South Korea, which was a wonderful experience, you know, to live overseas and to experience that culture. But I did experience sexual assault in a foreign country, and you don't have the same rights there that a citizen would have. And so there was no prosecution. There was no investigation. And that was horrifying on so many levels. A lot of people who experience sexual assault here also don't get, you know, justice. And that's a really long, complicated subject. I felt like all that light and all that beauty was just shoved back into this human experience and now I had a real trauma to overcome. And I thought, okay, well, I do have some knowledge from the other side. How am I going to heal this? And it was a long journey. The first year you're in shock, you know, the second year you're beginning to process things in therapy. But honestly, what helped the most was being that voice that could help kids who experience sexual assault in their families or, you know, date rape or other experiences and get them the resources and the help and the healing that they needed. And if I didn't do that healing, I wasn't going to be able to show them how to do it. So it's really a whole lot more common than we realize. And they were even in the book, I read about, you know, a young boy who was sexually assaulted and still processing that from when it happened when he was a kid to when he was an eighth grader. And there's, there's so many kids who are going through that. And it's almost like they understood they could talk to me. And we definitely need to revamp sex ed in the United States and just be realistic about it and safe about it and just understand that kids who have been raped might be sexually active and they need information about how to heal themselves emotionally, how to have safe sex and, and, you know, take some of the religious dogma around that element out of schools and really get to healing. And that was, I think, part of what I experienced in order to become a better healer in this sense with, with kids and to just understand the human experience because a lot of teachers had judgment and they didn't use opportunities to connect with kids. They'd see bad behavior and they'd make a judgment about that kid, send them to detention where I'd go in and I'd say, what's going on in your life? Why are you acting this way? And often find abuse, whether it's physical, sexual, or emotional, and then start dealing with that. Well, even if the CPS system couldn't help them, I could at least give them insight and how to grow and heal beyond that in their lives. So that was a big part of teaching in the public school system that I kind of changed in my way of looking at the world. Was it hard to write about it? Yes. Believe it or not, not my own experience. I've done enough therapy, you know, to where I'm perfectly fine around that. What was hard was putting it in the book and my editor was making me think about this on a larger level and saying, okay, you're the voice for a lot of people who may never speak this. What are you going to say about rape culture? What are you going to say about it in South Korea and America and other places? You know, are you going to make a stand? Are you going to lift up people and be their voice? And that was a heavy responsibility. I was like, no, I'm just telling my story. I'm writing my story like a memoir. I'm not trying to be a voice for others. And then he said, well, then you're not stepping into your power. That's what you need to do. So to some degree, I know that I have said this for the sake of all the people who won't say it. And certainly they write to me and that has become, you know, a big part of, I guess, the communication that I have with a lot of people. Well, that's, you know, that's amazing. I've kind of stumbled into this topic of sexual abuse, particularly satanic ritual abuse, which is something a lot of people don't want to look at. A lot of people want to deny. And if you look at it honestly, it's completely undeniable. I mean, it's proven over and over again. What's worse is that the connections it has to, for example, our, some of our religious institutions is kind of well known, you know, but also some of our political figures, that's been explored and exposed, you know, like lately with the Jeffrey Epstein thing, but anyone who's paying attention, that stuff goes back well documented, well documented in the 90s, but the whole Franklin scandal, well documented in the 70s and 80s with the Finder's cult, where the CIA was actually using sexual blackmail as a tool against, you know, if you're a CIA guy and you're already in the when it all costs things, the idea that you can take some eight year old, six year old boy or girl and, you know, compromise some foreign dignitary or some not foreign, you know, in this country person and get them in on tape with that. I mean, that's just the ultimate prize. It's, it's worth more than years of surveillance and doing it the hard way, but it's soul crushing and it's evil in a way. So understanding all that, you know, and talking to people like I think I mentioned to you in that last brief chat we had, my conversation with Annika Lucas was particularly meaningful and I connected because she's used yoga and meditation and other things to kind of transform and kind of overcome, but her mother sold her into sex slavery in a Belgian satanic cult, the one that you see if you just go in the 90s, the ones that was connected to the highest levels of government throughout Europe, that's the one she doesn't like to name names because 25 of the people connected with that case were murdered before it went to trial, but they still did convict a couple of them, but it's so frickin real. But imagine six years old, your mother, you know, because her mother was not stable, you know, and the thing about the satanic ritual abuse is that it's cracking people open in order to spiritually interfere with them. So I know I'm doing kind of a mind dump here, but not really because one of the things that's lacking in the near death experience community is an ability to come to grips with that kind of evil, that kind of extended consciousness evil. I think from what I've learned that you are totally on it in terms of your bottom line conclusion, which is to basically just find the light and keep finding the light and keep finding the light and keep finding the light and don't be discouraged. But I think that I'd like to see more people bring that message forth after acknowledging, you know, what folks are going through and not reducing 225,000 people dying as some environmental project that God had planned all along. So don't worry about it. To me, that sounds a lot like you're a biological robot in a meaningless universe. So your life doesn't matter anyway. Yeah, I'm way more interested in the healing aspect. And since I've started speaking publicly about this, I have connected with people. There's one man, Jackson Hanks, who he was, he's a lawyer in my town of all things in Texas, and he was richly abused by satanic cult when he was a kid. And he's had to process this and writes openly about it. And it's horrifying. I mean, the book is hard to read, but he has focused so much of his life on healing and then helping other abuse survivors find ways to heal, working with shamans and past life regression as in, you know, all kinds of people. And I certainly have a dump of healing modalities that I throw in at the end of my book as well. It's a path for everyone. And I think that everyone might find different modalities that work for them. I'm so glad she found that modality. And there's something about looking at the energy that is taken from you when you experience child abuse or rape. It is an energetic assault as well as a physical assault. And so that has to be healed. That was something that really came to me. And I saw other rape survivors as if a cannon had been shot right through the center of their being. So it takes power, literally away from you. You don't have the power to go out and fight in this world and get ahead. And so that, yeah, it is, they say it's not a crime of passion. Sometimes it may be, but I think it is a way to extract power from another human being to take something from them. And so when you reclaim that, you get more of your energy back, but it's a long process. So yeah, I like people who focus on the healing aspect of it. And we do have to have conversations about these things because they're real and they exist. And with just staying only in this topic of love and light and that's all, then you're missing a world of suffering that needs your healing. What's behind that darkness? What's behind that evil that wants to, wants to inhibit that light? Do you have any insights into what's going on there in a way that can help? Yeah, we need to create more stable, respectful human communities where we have discussions like this. So that was one thing that I saw in a classroom. I talked openly with students, let them talk openly about what they've been through and how to be respectful to one another when they date, when they go out into the world, when they really just away from religion and away from education, just how do we create stable, safe, respectful human communities? That's one discussion. But another part of this is people are afraid to talk about these topics because it makes the money easy and they don't know how to categorize it and they don't know what to do necessarily, to confront their own pain, their own darkness, the things they suppress. So there's a lot of discussion I think that needs to happen. You know, one of the things that, again, referencing back to Annika Lucas, one of the things that she said that's challenging to me in a way, but she said, I mean that her, I don't know what term to put on this, because when you say abuser and stuff like that, you're just really softening it in order to make people not, I don't know, flip out or stuff. She was raped thousands of times as a kid, you know, tiny kid, six years old. And she said she had to learn to look into the eyes of the perpetrators and in that, this relates to something you're saying, she saw the fear. She saw the little kid that had been traumatized and had given over to a darkness, you know, and that that was what helped her kind of understand it and get through it. And I think it's interesting that you said that, which is, again, a more complex, nuanced thing that, you know, these aren't crimes of passion and then you say, well, sometimes they are. And I think you're right. I mean, everything we, all the experts tell us these are primarily crimes of domination, control, of evil, of darkness, of blockages, of light that needs to be released in these unproductive ways. So again, I guess I'd, you know, ask, I don't want to belabor this too much, but do you have any thoughts about what's going on in that, in those darker realms? And in particular, how you link that, because I think you link that quite beautifully to, you don't have to dwell on that. You can transmute it, transform it into lightness. So anything there. Wow, that is quite a bit to get into. How do you link that back? What are some of your thoughts about linking that back to what you were saying earlier and your spiritually transformative experience? I mean, I think some of the links there are quite obvious and you're, they're well made, but deeper than that, I think there's, go ahead. Deeper than that is letting go of fear, even when you've been through trauma and reconnecting to how quickly can I heal. This is a time period of healing quicker. So we've seen some people who are bitter about the child abuse they've been through until they're 80 or 90 and they die just bitter at, you know, a family member. No, this is the time period where we can reclaim that energy. There's so much that we know about energy work, about trauma release. And there's so many people who are making groundbreaking strides in that area that we need to remind people that you can heal completely. You can take all your power back. You can be this fully functioning human being in this world, even after experiencing trauma, but you'll be more compassionate to others who have experienced this. So complete healing is the direction I'd like to see people moving toward and walking toward and then changing, you know, because even, even the horrible things in life like human trafficking, although it exists and it's horrific. Now I do believe percentage wise, less people are enslaved than ever before. We just have more people on the earth. So the numbers are bigger. So I like to think that we're moving in a trajectory of making society better over time that we're evolving. I'd like to believe that. I'd like to hope that. But that means that we have to get involved. So that means that, you know, you can't just go, oh, I'm healed. It means you have to support people who are working in, in larger arenas. That's awesome, Trisha. So tell us more about some of the work that you're doing. The book is, is really pretty phenomenal. I can't say that I've read the whole thing because we kind of came to it kind of late, but some stellar recommendations and it looks like very, very good fun reading, but powerful reading. But I want to hear more about the NDE summit and your YouTube channel and just some of the work that you're doing with, with people in terms of coaching, helping and all of that kind of stuff. So tell us more what's going on in, in your world. Yeah, I'm having a ton of fun. I have a spiritual community that meets every other Wednesday on Zoom and I'm giving medium readings, kind of spontaneous readings because I want people to have their own intuition verified and, and upgraded in a sense. And I think when we just talk about these moments and, and other people understand that they have the same ability than their intuition is strengthened. So I love connecting with people and that's a ton of fun. I also, for three years have had the online near-death experience summit where I have speakers come and talk. This past year it was free and I just streamed it on YouTube on for two days. So people, thousands of people, I think 5,000 people viewed the first day and 4,000 people viewed the second day, which is just amazing. And those videos are available for purchase on my website. I have links for that. But, but yeah, I have been blessed by hearing the stories of near-death experiencers. I didn't think that I thought it would just be interesting and I'm an experiencer and I'll just talk with them. But on an energetic level, I've lived through some of their experiences and it's seeped into my own experience. And I felt this, I guess, because I just connect on that energy level, this deepening of an understanding of the other side by hearing these stories. And I know people who hear these stories do get some of that energy or do get that hope and that faith as you talked about. So I think it's important to keep talking with near-death experiencers. And I think I'm someone who kind of launches new voices. I certainly have interviewed some of the famous ones and the well-documented near-death experiencers. But I love to find just ordinary people who want to tell their experience for the first time and support them on that journey and remind them of how this may touch someone's life. And that's a lot of fun too, is supporting new people, young people. I'd like to continue to interview young people since I work with college students and really give them that voice and that awareness that they may be walking through difficult things in life, but they'll always have their experiences, this guiding force of faster healing, faster growth and transformation here on the planet. Well, that's awesome. I really appreciate you talking with us today on Skeptico and best of luck with this very important work that you're doing. Well, thank you very much. And I have loved the conversation. You took me to places I haven't been in other interviews. So thank you for that. It's cool. Thanks again to Tricia Barker for joining me today on Skeptico. The one question I guess I tee up from this interview has to do with what we take and what we leave behind. It was really quite a profound statement, I think, that Tricia made about the limits of materialism when it comes to this extended consciousness realm that we transcend into after we die, if you believe all that stuff. But she had quite a statement to make that I think kind of resonates with all of us. We kind of know it's true, but we don't want to think about it. It's another spin on the you can't take it with you. And her spin is, well, the one thing you can take with you is love. That's a tough one. Let me know your thoughts, kind of a question, non-question, but you get the idea. Let me know your thoughts. Love to hear from you. As always, stay with me more to come in the future. Take care. Bye for now.